And fhaded all beneath. But now the fun
With orient beams had chac'd the dewy night
From earth and heaven; all nature ftood disclos'd:
When looking on the neighbouring woods we saw
The ghaftly vifage of a man unknown,

An uncouth feature, meagre, pale, and wild;
Affliction's foul and terrible dismay

Sat in his looks, his face impair'd and worn
With marks of famine, fpeaking fore diftrefs;
His locks were tangled, and his shaggy beard
Matted with filth; in all things elfe a Greek.

He first advanc'd in hafte; but when he faw
Trojans and Trojan arms, in mid career
Stopt fhort, he back recoil'd as one furpriz'd:
But foon recovering speed, he ran, he flew
Precipitant, and thus with piteous cries
Our ears affail'd; "By heaven's eternal fires,
"By every God that fits inthron'd on high,

By this good light, relieve a wretch forlorn, "And bear me hence to any distant shore, "So I may fhun this favage race accurft. "'Tis true I fought among the Greeks that late "With sword and fire o'erturn'd Neptunian Troy, "And laid the labour of the Gods in duft; "For which, if fo the fad offence deferves,

"Plung'd in the deep, for ever let me lie "Whelm'd under feas; if death must be my doom, "Let man inflict it, and I die well pleas'd." He ended here, and now profuse of tears In fuppliant mood fell proftrate at our feet. ; We bade him fpeak from whence, and what he was,

And

And how by stress of fortune funk thus low;
· Anchifes too with friendly aspect mild
Gave him his hand, fure pledge of amity,
When, thus encourag'd, he began his tale.
I'm one, fays he, of poor defcent, my name
Is Achæmenides, my country Greece,
Ulyffes' fad compeer, who, whilft he fled
The raging Cyclops, left me here behind
Difconfolate, forlorn; within the cave
He left me, giant Polypheme's dark cave;
A dungeon wide and horrible, the walls
On all fides furr'd with mouldy damps, and hung
With clots of ropy gore, and human limbs,
His dire repaft: himself of mighty size,
Hoarfe in his voice, and in his visage grim,
Intractable, that riots on the flesh

Of mortal men, and fwills the vital blood.
Him did I fee fnatch up with horrid grafp
Two fprawling Greeks, in either hand a man:
I faw him when with huge tempeftuous sway
He dasht and broke them on the grundfil edge;
The pavement fwam in blood, the walls around
Were fpatter'd o'er with brains. He lapt the blood,
And chew'd the tender flesh ftill warm with life,
That fwell'd and heav'd itself amidst his teeth
As fenfible of pain. Not lefs mean while
Our chief incens'd, and ftudious of revenge,
Plots his deftruction, which he thus effects.

The giant, gorg'd with flesh, and wine, and blood,
Lay ftretcht at length and snoring in his den,
Belching raw gobbets from his maw, o'ercharg'd

With purple wine and cruddled gore confus'd.
We gather'd round, and to his fingle eye,
The fingle eye that in his forehead glar'd
Like a full moon, or a broad burnish'd shield,
A forky staff we dextroufly apply'd,

Which, in the spacious socket turning round,
Scoopt out the big round jelly from its orb.
But let me not thus interpose delays :
Fly, mortals, fly this curft detefted race:
A hundred of the same stupendous size,
A hundred Cyclops live among the hills,
Gigantic brotherhood, that stalk along
With horrid ftrides o'er the high mountains tops,
Enormous in their gait; I oft have heard

Their voice and tread; oft feen them as they past,
Sculking and fcouring down, half dead with fear.
Thrice has the moon wash'd all her orb in light,
Thrice travel'd o'er in her obfcure fojourn,

The realms of night inglorious, fince I've liv'd
Amidst these woods, gleaning from thorns and shrubs
- A wretched fuftenance. As thus he spoke,
We faw descending from a neighbouring hill
Blind Polypheme; by weary steps and flow
The groping giant with a trunk of pine
Explor'd his way: around his woolly flocks
Attended grazing: to the well-known fhore
He bent his courfe, and on the margin ftood,
A hideous monfter, terrible, deform'd;
Full in the midft of his high front there gap'd
The fpacious hollow where his eye-ball roll'd,
A ghaftly

E

A ghaftly orifice; he rins'd the wound,

And wash'd away the ftrings and clotted blood
That cak'd within; then stalking through the deep
He fords the ocean; while the topmast wave

Scarce reaches up his middle fide: we stood
Amaz'd, be fure; a fudden horror chill

Ran through each nerve, and thrill'd in every vein,
Till, ufing all the force of winds and oars,

We fped away; he heard us in our course,
And with his out-stretch'd arms around him grop'd,
But, finding nought within his reach, he rais'd
Such hideous fhouts that all the ocean fhook.
Ev'n Italy, though many a league remote,
In diftant echos answer'd; Ætna roar'd,
Through all its inmoft winding caverns roar'd.
Rous'd with the found, the mighty family
Of one-eyed brothers hasten to the fhore,
And gather round the bellowing Polypheme,
A dire assembly: we with eager haste
Work every one, and from afar behold
A hoft of giants covering all the shore.

So ftands a forest tall of mountain oaks
Advanc'd to mighty growth: the traveller
Hears from the humble valley where he rides
The hollow murmurs of the winds that blow
Amidft the boughs, and at the distance fees
The fhady tops of trees unnumber'd rife,
A ftately prospect, waving in the clouds.

THE

THE CAMPAIGN,

A POE M,

то

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH,

66

1705.

-Rheni pacator ef Istri.

"Omnis in hoc uno variis difcordia ceffit

"Ordinibus; lætatur eques, plauditque fenator, "Votaque patricio certant plebeia favori."

CLAUD. de Laud. Stilic.

"Effe aliquam in terris gentem quæ fuâ impenfâ, suo "labore ac periculo, bella gerat pro libertate aliorum. "Nec hoc finitimis, aut propinquæ vicinitatis ho«minibus, aut terris continenti junctis præftet. "Maria trajiciat: ne quod toto orbe terrarum in"juftum imperium fit, et ubique jus, fas, lex, po"tentiffima fint." Liv. Hift. lib. 33.

7HILE crowds of princes your deferts proclaim,

WHIL

Proud in their number to enrol your name;
While emperors to you commit their cause,
And Anna's praises crown the vast applause;
Accept, great leader, what the Mufe recites,
That in ambitious verfe attempts your fights.
Fir'd and tranfported with a theme so new,
Ten thousand wonders opening to my view